


fur and fennel

by sybilius



Series: count to ten and run for cover [6]
Category: Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
Genre: An extremely healthy relationship tbqh, Angel's Leather Gloves, Communications - Freeform, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Melancholy, Mentors, Multi, Rabbits, Secrets, Soup, Soup as a metaphor for many things including soup, Storytelling, mother figure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 06:05:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18230924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius
Summary: Angel Eyes and Tuco share dinner at the gatehouse with an unexpected guest. More to the point, it's the ghost at Angel's table that they're truly sharing the meal with.





	fur and fennel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MeFish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeFish/gifts).



> This was a lovely prompt handed to me by me-fish, which I am exceptionally grateful for. It's rare that I'm able to produce fluff.
> 
> With all my thanks to mcicioni for her language help.

It’s been all but a few weeks, and already I find myself asking: how was I at such a lack for color before?

The carrots fall in the ceramic bowl next to the licorice-scented slices of green. Has Tuco had fennel before? I glance to the wall clock – its chime will mark the hour any moment now. Then, I suppose, I’ll know. This is one honesty he’s certain to grant me, should I ask. One further than my absent _innamorato_ would allow me. Dare I wonder if Blondie would offer Tuco any more than that?

I suspect not, and more to the point; I’ll leave him to that. The mornings I offer him barbs and philosophical artifices, hoping to catch him out before the word liar springs bitter and lazy on my tongue. I had not realized, when I made this gambit, how that shade of foxglove had taken root between us.

 _A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi_ , he has his own burdens at the moment, imagined and steeped with false holiness as they are; I’ll hold my tongue for the moment.

Evenings are more than ample distraction.

Perhaps it’s the simplicity of the gatehouse, the bright colors against all its earthen tones, that sets apart a wary feeling of peace compared to my labyrinthine residence. Perhaps it’s the specter of death, lurking a few paces behind in peripheral vision, rather than beside me as partner.

Partners. It would be injudicious not to recognize the role of intended company in that elusive now-earned joy.

 _Quam bene vivas refert non quam diu_ . Goodness in it is highly suspect; but at least; at last, there’s something settled in it. Or perhaps his Spanish tongue would summarize it better, _barriga llena, corazón contento_.

I would say that one was difficult to grasp, when it was taught to me. Certainly it meant nothing to my teacher, but with a good soup, I could appreciate the sentiment. I take a spoonful of my efforts, letting the tomato and spice roll over my tongue. Still not quite enough of a distraction to stop old instincts, my head turning sharp, one hand to my back, when the door slams open.

“Angel! Do you have – a blanket handy? Or a towel? Something you don’t mind getting dirty?”

Only the expected visitor.

Seeing Tuco’s distress, I nod sharply, bypassing the crocheted piece on the black velvet couch he’s seemed fond of and tugging out a tartan blanket I barely remember storing in the corner cupboard.

“Will this do? Everything all right?”

“No, no don’t worry at all – I’ll be right back!”

And just like that, he’s out the door, the flannel trailing in the mud behind him. I shake my head, far too fondly, but leave the door open for the moment. The soup needs slightly more oregano, before letting the fennel simmer. Perhaps a few sprigs of thyme…

I check over my shoulder belatedly – in the mansion I would have shut it immediately, but he’ll be back soon. Then, the parsley to the soup –

“ _Estás seguro_ , little rabbit–”

I nearly drop the spoon.

The same words, fond and careful– with the selfsame smells, I learned to make this soup under her eyes–

But it’s Tuco’s voice, not hers, and he has something bundled up in the blanket. I school my features before he looks up.

“He’s got a hurt leg, you think we can put him in a box somewhere?”

Nestled in his arms is a small, shivering hare, its eyes wide and moving too quickly between us. Of course, yes, why would my partner’s capacity for strange and small kindnesses stop at myself, at Blondie, at a shell-shocked waitress at a diner–

“ _¿Estás bien? Es solo un conejo_.”

 _Conejo_ , I remember when she’d taught me that word – and then I’d told her, with such precision, that I’d decided her affection in the nickname made it acceptable to me.

“I’m fine, yes,” I can tell Tuco doesn’t completely believe me, but I gesture to a square trash bin beside the cabinet which has remained mostly empty.

He kneels down, letting the blanket drape over its edges, murmurs softly to it, “Come on. You’re alright now.”

“We should cover it; in the darkness and confines it will have less to fear. For at least as long as it takes a short rest,” I find an empty folder in the desk tucked in the corner which will serve.

“Let’s have some water first, hm? Wash out that dirt from the cut.”

I pass him a glass of water, gathering myself while he tends to the animal.

Fennel and orzo – I remember the first time I made this soup. No orzo then, I’d made do with a half-empty package of egg noodles at the back of my mentor’s cupboards. She’d looked at the fennel suspiciously when I pulled it out of the paper bag, but said nothing. By now we were far beyond my disastrous first minestrone, and I was still so inexperienced at looking for the way her sleight-of-hand made a capsule find its way into my bowl for the night–

What a thing to be fond of. It was meant to be poison. It was nothing but blue food coloring, the slightly sour taste of defeat. Games, games that would be deadly–

“There. Think he’s settling now, probably can let him out tomorrow morning. It smells good, _que estás cocinando_?” Tuco looks up and I almost don’t hear the question, “You sure you’re alright?”

“Just remembering something. Have you had fennel before?”

As it turns out, he has not, but like most things he takes to it easily, praises the soup with both words and spoon. It’s turned out well, I admit, the brine of the feta cheese pairing beautifully with the spice and tomato. When he’s starting to slow his pace, I can see him stealing glances at me. Since when had I become the object of someone’s worries?

I’m out of the habit, since Alma was killed. That was over a decade and still–  I scrape out a spoonful of soup, searching for an appropriate conversation topic.

“Will you tell me something about your family?”

His brow knits, “What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything. Just – a story.”

He glances over his shoulder to where his own little rabbit rests in the wicker bin, “Sure, alright. So. In that project in Brooklyn where my parents and brother and I were all crammed in with the spaghetti-eaters– one year, when I was about nine, my brother and I found a cat. We-ell, I say found, there were lots of cats in the neighborhood, and nasty ones too. Not this one, he was gentle.”

He takes a sip from his wine, and I can almost see the scene forming in his mind’s eye. Alleyways with slightly crumbling brick, a few children yelling in Italian to each other – of course, my work had brought me to Brooklyn twice now.

“He was patchy. Thin with orange and grey spots. He was hurt when we found him too, and Pablo couldn’t bear to leave him alone. He’d just started with the Good Book more seriously too, was giving me verses about caring for all living things. _Jacob y Esau_ , I knew it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t say no to him.”

“I can imagine,” Funny that even so young, Tuco was playing protector to his brother. I have to wonder what prompted that kind of behavior, or if it was simply a role he naturally fell into.

“There was half a week of pretending I was playing games with Pablo, making little meows to cover the noises from our room. We called him Fang, he had a smile with teeth,” Tuco smiles then, wide and bright and full of color, “But the jig was up when he dumped a rat he’d caught right on my mother’s kitchen tiles. Should have heard her scream.”

I half-smile wistfully. Alma wouldn’t have abided by rats, but she certainly never would have screamed, “So was that the end of it, your pet?”

“You’d think but – after she calmed down she said she’d rather have him than the rat. So if Pablo and I could find a way to feed him, he could stay. I was so relieved, thought we were going to get shouted at for sure. My father warmed up to him too, it meant he wouldn’t have to deal with the rats too and my mother had been getting on him about it,” Tuco barely notices when I clear his bowl, getting into the story with lit eyes and full gestures, “Then a few days later, Fang ran out the door when Pablo was leaving for school. Just slipped out between his legs and – gone! We looked for him, but no sense in it. He didn’t want to be owned.”

He pushes back the chair with a nod, tugging me away from the pile of dishes to sit on the couch, grabbing the bar of chocolate on the counter. It’s not for sex, not this time, but the mere selfish desire to have someone to drape over, and perhaps the secondhand smoke he’s missing over the spectacle of restraint that he’s imposed on himself. I don’t mind indulging him.

“ _¿Y tu familia? ¿Tienes una historia allí?_ ”

“I’m – I have little to offer that’s quite so,” I stumble on the right word, “charitable, perhaps.”

He snaps a square of chocolate, offering me one a moment later, “I could have told you about the terrible hustles I dragged Pablo into–”

“No, it’s not – quite that,” I pause, hating that I can’t offer him a fair exchange for what I asked of him. I should have known, and the honesty I can give him in its place is a poor substitute. I choose my words carefully, “I told you once that Blondie knew everything about me – those things that matter. I wasn’t lying.”

I take a bite of chocolate, enjoying the steady weight of his body on my shoulder. Hoping this doesn’t give him reason to pull away. The sweetness melts under my tongue.

“I was sure then, when I told him, that he understood those stories in the way I meant them. Now? I can’t tell what he’s taken from them, and I can’t take back the way they were told either.”

More to the point, I wouldn’t. I know now that I needed that confession, maudlin as that may seem. Histories have their own weight, the telling of them lessens the burden. But once released, they have their own life just the same.

I believed Blondie understood from his own experiences then – but now I ask, how could he?

Tuco frowns, his mustache moving back and forth with consideration. I can’t remember the last thing I’d refused him something. I wish I didn’t have to.

“I tell you, you take what he thinks too seriously. Rubber chicken, _¿recuerdas?”_

“You don’t think someone who was an assassin would have stories that would give you pause?” Past tense, and I can feel the momentary tension gather in his spine.

“…no, you’re right.”

He meets my eyes quickly, then glances downward. Somewhere between terror and pity – I’m sure part of him wonders if I’d been put through horrors, to be able to do as I did without remorse or hesitation. I run my glove through his hair carefully.

There were no horrors – or rather, the challenge would be to speak of what could have, perhaps should have been horrifying and make it understood that they were at minimum instructional, and somehow, at best – their own form of love.

“I’m certain I will find the right time and words– but for now, I am sorry.”

Tuco half shrugs, and though I’m studying the low-burning fire rather than his brown eyes, I can feel his brow furrowing with thought, “Maybe you shouldn’t be yet– you know there are some things I might not want to know.”

That would be its own curse. “Perhaps– there are certain among them that I’d like to tell you, someday.”

“ _Entonces, los oiré_.”

“ _Gracias_ ,” I say, grateful for the complete lack of hesitation when he responds. I leave off in the couch for a moment, checking the north and south windows out of habit while he wraps himself in the crochet blanket.

“Is the rabbit all right?”

I lift the folder carefully, “I think it’s asleep.”

“Smart boy.”

Once the fire has another log, I take my part of the blanket, pulling him close once again. I feel there’s something I’d like to say– even if a story I cannot offer –

“My mentor–” I begin, not knowing where this will take me. A thousand tales about Alma spin through my memory like a film reel, and I’ve lost the sense of which are charming and which are horrific. If I ever had any sense of that.

“The one who hid your things?”

“The same,” I admit. Already having failed to give any sense of her bravery, her uncompromising love, her incalculable respect for a child that was by all accounts appallingly prepared to take on violence as a metier. Where would I be without her?

“She taught me Spanish. It’s – I held that from you not because I ever believed it would give me knowledge over you. Though it’s occurred to me you may have believed that,” I choose my words carefully, he nods with the late softness of understanding in his eyes, “But it was her tongue, just the same. I hesitate to speak it unless it’s with those I trust.”

“ _Es_ _toy agradecido_.”

“ _Yo también_ ,” I mean that, in several senses of gratitude. Grateful that he’s here just the same, “Come to think of it – _paraja_. Partner, in her tongue, is a fitting parallel.”

Italian, my father’s tongue, Blondie’s gift and curse. One could say that what Alma taught me was its own curse – but rather– it was a burden we came to share, over time. I would not take it back; more to the point. I would not be myself without it.

“ _Paraja_ ,” he yawns, tugging my glove off carefully. Cheeky as ever, “Sounds right by me.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Translation notes:
> 
>  _innamorato_ \- Lover, Italian. 
> 
> _A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi,_ \- A cliff in front, a wolf behind (between a rock and a hard place). Latin.
> 
>  _Quam bene vivas refert non quam diu._ \-- It is how well you live that matters, not how long. Latin. 
> 
> _barriga llena, corazón contento_ \- Full stomach, happy heart. Spanish. 
> 
> _Estás seguro_ \--You're safe. Spanish.
> 
>  _¿Estás bien? Es solo un conejo_ \-- You okay? it's only a rabbit. Spanish. 
> 
> _que estás cocinando?_ \-- What are you cooking? Spanish.
> 
>  _¿Y tu familia? ¿Tienes una historia allí?_ \-- And your family? Do you have a story? Spanish. 
> 
> _Entonces, los oiré._ \-- Then, I will hear it. Spanish. 
> 
> _Estoy agradecido_ \-- I'm grateful. Spanish.
> 
>  _Yo también,_ \--I am as well. Spanish.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments very much appreciated <3!


End file.
